Let Me Tell You A Story...

Passion. It is what drives us all through life. I have always been a firm believer that we are all born with a spark of passion within us and it is our purpose to seek out that spark and live it. I feel I was one of the lucky ones, a rarity. I found my passion at five years old. From the first moment I learned about the incredible culture of ancient Egypt, I was in love with history. I fell in love with the mysteries of the past, with the varying religious beliefs and traditions of the ancient world. By age nine, I had been introduced to the classical world as well, and by age ten, I could recite all the mythologies by heart.

I grew up hearing many adults say, “Oh yes, I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a kid, too, and if I could go back in time, I would have stuck with it.” I would always reply with “Why didn’t you?” because it never made sense to me why someone would not follow their heart and live out their dream. For me, there was no other option. I knew I was going to study history and find and take care of the objects that people left behind. I read every history and mythology book that I could get my hands on like Dame Edith Hamilton’s collection of Greek mythology, and Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life.

 

But as I grew older, history became more of a living thing rather than just words on a page and I knew I needed to do whatever it took to be a part of it.  In 2014, I transferred to the University of West Georgia to join their best-in-state anthropology program. During my junior year, I was awarded an internship at the Antonio J. Waring Archaeology Lab on campus. Senior year, I lived in a tent in the woods of South Carolina for a full month, waking up at dawn to dig in the earth for eight hours every day, searching for artifacts that would give us a sign that the site had historical significance. Holding these precious artifacts in my hands made me stop simply marveling at their mere existence and start asking questions such as: who owns this? Am I the temporary custodian only because I hold it in this moment? Is it the culture it originates from? Or does it belong to the general public because we are all humans and therefore connected? And who determines this, and how do I get to be a part of that decision?

 

It was these questions (and a very determined friend of mine and former alumni of the program) that pushed me to return to graduate school and enter the Public History program at UWG. It was here that I grew even more as a historian, breaking my tunnel-vision for the Classics. I was granted another chance to work with the American Revolutionary War collection I worked on as an undergraduate student as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Waring Archaeology Lab. With eight undergrad students by my side, I worked tirelessly for nearly two years to revitalize the collection and bring it up to today’s cultural resource management standards so that the public may enjoy it after it sat in the dark for so many years. During this time, I dove into my graduate classes and undertook Latin and read numerous books that began to make me start questioning the way we perceive history. For so long, it was just a simple textbook written by a single soul who told us what history was and what we should take from it. But what about the other stories, the other perspectives of history that never seemed to make it to the textbooks?

 

I was then introduced to the study of indigenous cultures, something that I had never had a privilege of working with much before. While my gaze had been solely focused on the countries overseas, I was finally able to look at my own country and explore the cultures that originated in America. I began to delve even further into repatriation, something I was already passionate about with the Classics. I began to understand how it pertained to the indigenous cultures of America as well, if not more. Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits by Chip Colwell was one of the books that stuck with me the most throughout graduate school because it was an example of archaeology and public history joining together to make a mark on the world and therefore, leaving a mark on me and my hopes for my own future career as both archaeologist and public historian. The balanced way Colwell wrote about the debate between academic freedom and moral and religious rights of humans empowered me to want to join the discussion of repatriation and cultural resource management even more than school and my own experiences had already done. It was this book that made me realize that the field of public history is needed now more than ever in today’s world where history is either ignored or twisted to justify radical actions and beliefs. It started making me ask even more questions. Rather than ask, “who owns this piece of history?”, I began to wonder, “Who am I to make that decision over someone who shares an ethnical connection with this piece of history?”

 

I personally was able to witness this debate during my time at the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park during my internship in 2022, a time that threw me even further into the problem-solving field of cultural resource management and made me even more passionate about protecting cultural treasures and maintaining living connections. At this same time, I was learning the art of collections management at the Atlanta History Center, which really opened my eyes for the first time to what happens to artifacts after they have been pulled from the earth by archaeologists. It is one thing to see them in the dirt, and then another to see them encased in glass under dozens of lights and surrounded by signs and labels. Before the collections management class, I had not given much thought as to what happens in between the two. Between my experience at the Waring Lab and my time at Ocmulgee working with artifacts from the 1930s excavations there, I discovered another side of history that enthralled me as much as studying the Classics had before.

 

As a historian with a multi-disciplinary background, I hope to seek out opportunities that will allow me the chance to explore history in a variety of ways, as it should be explored. For history is not a singular thing, but rather a multi-faceted field that offers perspectives that have previously been unheard. In a rapidly changing society, all voices deserve to be heard and all people’s stories, living and deceased, deserve to be told. As an anthropologist, I can listen and record these previously untold stories. As an archaeologist, I can uncover physical history and bring lost cultures back into the public eye. And as a historian, I can engage the public and show people that our future cannot exist without our past, that the two are inextricably linked and equally important. Another book that has greatly influenced me was Active Collections, especially the chapter by Rainey Tisdale, “Objects or People?”, a fascinating chapter in which the authors muse over the traditional question of how to get the public to care about artifacts, when really, the question should be how museum professionals can use the artifacts to connect with the public. As an anthropologist and archaeologist, this question has often plagued me. Which is more important, artifacts or the people who enjoy them? Prior to studying public history, the answer was simple for me: artifacts. However, over the past two years I have come to the realization that the answer is actually…people. For without people to enjoy the artifacts, what is the point of us collecting and caring for these objects? As public historians it is our duty to care for artifacts, yes, but it is more important for us to cultivate an active and thriving relationship with the surrounding communities so that the public want to engage with their own history.

 

And speaking of engaging with one’s own history, Tiya Miles’s book, All That She Carried, was a book that impacted both the archaeologist and public historian in me. Ms. Miles tells the story of how one woman’s familial past can be seen in one innocent sack, an incredibly powerful reminder that artifacts can tell dozens of stories or relay multiple perspectives of the same story. The sack’s modest display in a local museum emphasizes the impact such small items can have on human memory and community engagement. A small fact that has always resonated with me since reading this book is the museum’s foresight to place a tissue box right beside the sack’s case, because they saw the profound impact the sack made on the public’s emotions. Museums have that unique opportunity more than any institution, in my opinion.

 

I would love to work in a museum or with the National Park Service as an archaeologist or collections manager, but anything that allows me to work with and be a part of history would be an honor. The American author, Jodi Picoult, once wrote, “History isn’t about dates and places and wars. It’s about the people who fill the spaces between them.” As someone who is passionate about people, living and long-gone, this quote resonates with me. History is not just old stories and old photographs. It’s about people and the things they created, loved, and left behind as pieces of their legacies. These were their lives. And it will always be my duty and my privilege to ensure that they will never be forgotten.